'Guess what's behind the wall' kitchen vent/exhaust fan game

16 years ago

We are hoping to get some help (in the form of your experiences!) so that we can find out a little bit about what's behind the wall in our kitchen before we start calling contractors to come take a look at it so we can install a hood....we're not 100% sure who we should be calling yet.

Here's what we have: Our stove, an old O'Keefe and Merritt, vents into a space in our wall that looks, for all practical purposes, like it's a kitchen chimney of sorts. (Seems to correlate to a vent on the roof, too.) We also have a non-functional ceiling exhaust fan (the round retro style ones) above the range (about two feet from the "chimney"). We don't know if this vents anywhere or why it doesn't work.

We're hoping to figure out what kind of a setup might be behind the walls before calling someone out--for instance, is it just a matter of yanking the old exhaust fan and buying a new hood, because the old fan may already vent into the chimney? Is it even a chimney, or is our stove simply venting into our attic somewhere? Were the old exhaust fans (this one is circa 1960, we think) actually venting at all, or simply circulating air?

We need to get a good sense of the cost of this project, which obviously will vary greatly depending on which scenario we're working with....wondered if anyone has experience with a similar setup and might be able to clue us in on what we'll find if/when we open the wall.

Thanks!

[The house is c. 1915, stove c. 1950, fan c. 1960.]

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Comments (5)

paul_ma
16 years ago
You need to look. Pull down the existing equipment and see what you can about the ducting:
- what shape/diameter is it
- what material is it? (metal, plastic, rigid, flexible)
- can you see any bends? Are they sharp of gradual?

If you can, go on the roof and check that end of the vent too. Is it consistent with what you see in the kitchen? Can you shine a light at one end and see it at the other end, or otherwise verify that they are connected? (If you run the fan, does air come out the other end?)

If you find 4" duct and/or flexible plastic duct then just forget about reusing it. If you have at least 6" rigid metal duct then you can probably find something to work with it.
ci_lantro
16 years ago
You're going to have to crawl into the attic & look. And yes, range hoods from 1960 did exhaust. My mom had a Nutone one that was very effective and ran quiet--much quieter than a lot of the 'new' fans.
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I'm a little stumped but thought that you might appreciate a response. My guess is that grease will collect on the fan blades no matter what. What model hood is it? Are there filters and if so how often do you change or wash them? How often do you use the fan? Do you do much frying and sauteeing? I wonder if it's possible that due to light use and minimal fatty cooking methods the collection cups just haven't been filling up. Have you checked the outside vent? Is it clear or blocked? Personally I would think that if it was blocked you would be seeing a lot more grease and that it would be dripping from the blades and hood and the cups would be full. You might get better answers to this in the appliance forum. There are some extremely knowledgeable people about ventilation in there who know more than I. Hope this at least gets things started for you.
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talley_sue_nyc
16 years ago
If you find 4" duct and/or flexible plastic duct then just forget about reusing it.
True, but you might be able to use the space to run modern ducting (as long as it's big enough)
bayareafrancy
16 years ago
Hi Artemis,

Sound like you have a set up very similar to ours.

Here is what we have/had: The old stove (gone when we moved into our 1929 house) vented into the kitchen wall into a massive 12 inch diameter flue (metal flue, lined with ceramic). This flue went up the wall, through the attic, and out the roof (along with the furnace flue). When we moved in, the original stove was gone, and this flue was not hooked up to anything. The kitchen wall was repaired, and no opening to it remained. But we could easily see the flue from a crawl space on the opposite side of it.

In the ceiling was a cheapo fan that vented up through the ceiling and out the roof. I would guess that yours does go out the roof, but whether or not you can reuse any of its "guts" depends on what hood you want. Ours is too narrow for a good quality hood.

So, you need to get up in that attic, and count your flues!

We needed to remove our massive flue (to make space for a future bathroom upstairs), and that was a very difficult and expensive proposition. I think we also removed the venting from the ceiling fan, which was not a big deal.

We currently have a lovely 1955 O'Keefe and Merritt stove in our kitchen. We have no hood, and the house smells faintly of the homemade french fries I made last night. I can't wait to have a hood! We plan to put a high powered (vintage looking) hood over the stove, and vent out the roof. We don't plan on hooking up the stove pipe, because we need the wall space. If you are already hooked up to a stove pipe, and you are keeping your stove (which I would certainly encourage you to do b/c OKM's are awesome!), then you can leave that assembly alone. Just add a hood over the stove (unless the stove pipe is physically in the way). Without the stove pipe, you end up with a hole in the top of your stove from which quite a bit of heat (and odor) escapes. I'm used to it (though worried about the noxious odor--which a hood will take care of), but it does get hot!

Here is my stove. The stove pipe hole is on the top left side. The old flue was in the wall behind the stove.

I hope that helps a bit...

Now get in that attic, and let us know what you find!
jamesk
16 years ago
How old is your house? The setup you're describing was fairly typical in houses built up until sometime in the 1940's

It sounds as though you have an old-fashioned vented range. The ovens are vented through the pipe that leads from the top or the back of the range into the wall (which connects to a vent pipe that goes up through the roof). If you'll take my advice, you'll leave that just as it is. I wish newer more modern ranges were still built this way. All of the combustion by-products from the ovens are vented to the out-of-doors. That eliminates a lot of heat and fumes in the kitchen.

The vent in the ceiling may be an old-fashioned passive vent. This type of vent doesn't have a fan, they just allow hot air to rise up through the vent. Does it have a chain hanging down from the grill on the ceiling? The chain would be used to open and close the damper in the vent. Often the chains are broken and missing. They can be easily replaced with a new piece of heavy-duty ball chain (the same type you sometimes see on key chains, only a bit bigger). That would allow you to open and close the damper. These aren't as effective as a fan-powered vent, but they work. People striving for a real period vintage-look in their kitchens, love them

If you want to replace the passive vent with a range hood, I'd recommend not disturbing the existing range vent. Just install the hood above the existing vent pipe. The passive vent can be removed and ducting from a new range hood can be connected in the attic to the roof jack that formerly served the passive vent (they're usually 8"-12" in diameter). The old passive vent grill in the ceiling can be removed and the ceiling patched and painted.

'Guess what's behind the wall' kitchen vent/exhaust fan game

Comments (5)

paul_ma

ci_lantro

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